


Keep Me Kept

by CatKing_Catkin



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Caretaking, Character Development, Character Study, Cole is a fan of nugs, Exhaustion, Extended Metaphors, Families of Choice, Friendship, Gen, Headcanon, Homelessness, Hopeful Ending, Human!Cole, Introspection, Learning to be Human, Male Friendship, Mentor/Protégé, Nugs, Parent-Child Relationship, Time Skips, World Travel, hunger, wandering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-09 01:45:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3231566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatKing_Catkin/pseuds/CatKing_Catkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You don't care about people, and I don't have to stay here." </p><p>Or, Cole leaves the Inquisition due to low approval after the completion of "Subjected to His Will", because some things should still be that simple. He does his best to make his way in the world alone. More importantly, he does his best to help people with his newfound humanity, stumbling a little and learning a lot along the way. After the dust has been settled and the world has been saved, Varric runs into him on the long road home.</p><p>Takes place post-"Subjected to His Will".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keep Me Kept

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by me watching "companions leave" videos on YouTube and being particularly moved by Cole's. I wanted to write an AU of what might happen to him after leaving the Inquisition due to low approval (as opposed to being sent away, which is also a possibility with him) and it just...progressed from there. Really, "how the companions deal with the PC being an evil bastard" has always been a minor fascination of mine, in these sorts of video games. I'm glad Inquisition provided so many scenes of just that. 
> 
> And since "Bound to His Will" seemed to be bound to plot progression rather than approval, I didn't think it was too much of a stretch to think that he could have hypothetically hit his crises point after that quest was done. Becoming more human might even have made it easier for him to walk away, in the end. 
> 
> Also, all my Dragon Age fics seem to be growing progressively longer. Send help.

_"You don't care about people."_

Cole had learned a lot about being real since he'd first stepped properly out of the Fade. He'd learned more about the people he'd first set out to help, all their infinite complexities and insides and outsides and wants and hopes and fears and _hurts_. He'd learned that so many of them weren't just broken. They were _beautiful_.

Spirits were simple. People were complicated. Spirits _were_. People _lived_. Even if he couldn't always hear their hurts as sharply as he once could, he was better able to hear them, their souls and selves and songs. Better still, he didn't just hear, he understood, and _felt_.

With a little more help, one day he might have been able to join as well as share.

_"You don't care about people, and I don't have to stay here."_

He would forever be grateful to Varric for helping him become this way. For helping him become even this little bit _more_.

He would forever miss Varric, too. Varric and The Iron Bull and Dorian and Sera and Vivienne and Blackwall and Cassandra and Krem and and and...

_"You won't miss me."_

Cole had learned a very great deal about the complexities of life and existence since he'd first made himself real, since he'd been little more than a skulking shadow with a gleaming knife in the dark places of the White Spire. He'd learned avidly, happily, especially after he'd learned what "happily" felt like. Especially after there had been people around to see and remember and even help him, be _happy_ to help him.

Some things, however, would always be simple to him. Some things, he felt very definitely, should still be simple.

_**"F O R G E T."** _

He did not miss the Inquisitor. Cole knew that he would still be little more than a dead-eyed shadow on a knife's edge had he not met the Inquisitor. He would be waiting to be found by a templar and ended for good and all. Or perhaps he would have been found by Corypheus' Warden slaves instead and bound into doing wrong again.

The Inquisition had made him better. The Inquisitor, however, was the sort of woman who would make everything worse all over again. When she ran out of demons to fight or Rifts to close, she would find more fights instead. She was a woman in armor who thought she was always right, and no demon or Darkspawn or Corypheus could ever be as dangerous.

He'd chosen to get away while he could. The alternative, Cole knew, was a knife in the dark. Maybe it would even have been a better alternative, but everyone else would have known, and they would have been sad or upset or angry or vengeful and Cole was not that brave anymore. He was brave enough to stand in the light and say "no", but not brave enough to lose any more friends.

So he'd let himself be lost, instead. He missed them, and though he was not unreal enough anymore to reach into their heads and make them forget, not if they didn't want him to, he hoped they'd forgotten him anyway. Even now, Cole still found himself struggling with the idea that it wasn't better that way.

Cole left Skyhold, that day he'd realized that he couldn't stay any longer. He'd left, and he'd gone...elsewhere, alone.

He had learned very quickly just how very, very big the world was when you were only following yourself around. The Fade had never seemed so vast as the horizon spreading out before him at the foot of Skyhold's mountains.

Being Cole, and having a better idea now of what it meant to be Cole, he'd set off to try and find people to help. There wasn't much he could do anymore to help save the world - he was safe from being bound, but that really only meant he was more vulnerable to being seen and killed. There were always people that needed help even when the world was safely turning, however, and that was the help the Inquisitor had always been unwilling to provide.

He followed the roads and just kept walking.

It proved to be a very long and very difficult road, indeed.

He was more real, and so was slowly finding himself as bound by the rules of this side as he had been bound by the rules of the Fade. His body believed the lies it was told about being hungry, sleepy, hot, cold, sick, thirsty, and wouldn't listen to Cole anymore when he insisted those things didn't have to matter to him. They never had before, but _before_ was as far away as the Fade and maybe even further than that. It was certainly less substantial.

People could see him, now. Usually that was a good thing. Cole still didn't always say or do the right thing to help them, but no one ever did. Even when he said the wrong thing, usually they remembered that he'd tried. That was helpful just by the very fact that it had happened. Pain was bleeding, burning, blinding, and you could forget that others were there, that others were real, too. Sometimes, even just the act of Cole reaching out, and saying in the act of doing so _hello, my name is Cole, I am real and I see you, I understand, I want to help_ was enough to bring them back a little more. Just that little bit could dash the blood from their eyes, and maybe they could manage the rest all on their own.

They knew they weren't alone, and that was comforting, and sometimes enough. The impact he could have now just by existing and being known to exist was wonderful and terrifying, more than any dream had ever been.

People could see him, now, and that wasn't always a good thing. There were always people that were only happy when hurting - not hurting inside, but outside, hurting other people and feeling strong for it. Something was broken inside them and they wanted it to be broken inside everyone, too, so the world was as they wanted it to be rather than as it was or as it should be. They looked at Cole and saw someone slight, small, strange, traveling alone and never quite fitting in and never quite managing to disappear, either. They saw an easy target with no one to miss him, and even Cole could not always prove them wrong.

After all, just because someone was petty and thoughtless and unkind did not always mean they deserved to die. Even when they did, it could scare people to see if they didn't see everything.

So sometimes, there was hurt. A lot of times, there was hurt. Sometimes he got lost or stolen from or hurt or hungry and there was only him to feel it. Yet the road stretched on ahead of him all the same, and Cole always managed to pick himself up and find his way back onto it. He was free to do so, now, and the world in all its infinity was as unlike the dark stone of the White Spire as anything had ever been. Sometimes there was hurt, but that was just another part of being alive to feel it.

There were other troubles, other trials, other things to learn and cope with as Cole now that he knew better what it meant to be Cole. To be a "me", an "I", a name and a shape that took up space.

There was so much to keep track of, that he now had to make space for just in his head. No Varric to explain, no Dorian to ask. He had to learn the difference between bronze and silver and gold, and how much of one made how much of another. More than once, Cole paid too much and no one told him, or paid too little and people got upset with him and hurt him. He had to learn what was safe to eat, rather than having it handed to him and being told. He had to learn where he could go to sleep when he was tired, how to fix his clothes when he was cold, and how to get more of what he needed when he ran out and all his old tricks to disappear were harder, and resulted in a changing of his name to "thief" and more hurt when they didn't work.

And it was more than that, deeper than that. Just the act of interacting with people was something he had more to learn about. Cole was starting to suspect he would always have more to learn about it, and even with how far he'd come he wasn't sure how much he felt about that.

He could work for more money, or even just skipping the money and getting the things he needed right away. There wasn't much that Cole knew how to do besides killing some people and helping others, but there were some - innkeepers, storekeepers, caravan owners, farmers - who saw how much he meant the second and were willing to help him build from there. Some of them regretted it, such as when Cole would get lost in the thoughts of grass and sheep and sea and too many of the sheep wandered further away than the farmer would like, or when he stopped the caravan driver from whipping his horses faster than they could go. Some of them didn't, such as when Cole was able to find just what customers _really_ needed in the shop, or he listened and nodded patiently while refilling mugs in a inn's main room and suddenly the dwarven Carta agent was talking about the time he'd been abandoned by his mother for a noble caste.

Yet those moments were almost, somehow...worse. Existing and working and being seen could bring him into contact with so many people, throw him into the thick of crowds and conversations of all sorts from all kinds of places. It was the difference between standing on the edge of a stream with the water lapping over your toes and tumbling into the deep, dark ocean. In busy cities where people walked around him rather than trying to walk through him, in tiny towns where most of the population could gather in the inn for a night of drink and song, Cole sometimes found himself feeling like nothing so much as a stone resting on a riverbed, caught up in the gloriously swirling tides in all its infinite varieties and possibilities, and yet the price he paid was being worn away bit by bit, pieces of him offered up in penance for participation.

It was scary. And wonderful, which could only make it scarier. Cole couldn't help but wonder and doubt, in those moments where there was quiet all around and inside, just what would happen when too much of him was worn away. Would he still be Cole, just less of Cole? Would there be something else better or worse revealed beneath? Or would he just be...nothing at all?

There was never anyone to ask, anymore. And Cole kept on walking, because the alternative was too much like the walls he'd left behind him, but knew in his heart that there was no way there could ever be enough of him to fit the world beyond.

He didn't know if he'd remember the difference between flying and drowning until too late.

At some point during the days and months that followed, Cole felt the end of the evil that had first opened the Breach to start with. At some point some days or weeks after that, other people started to realize it, too.

He sat on a roof and watched the celebrations in Redcliffe, and carefully tucked the memory into his overfull heart for later.

* * *

Cole liked nugs.

He'd always liked nugs, but liked them even more now. They were small, simple, soft, sweet, and now he could wrap his mind and his tongue around ideas like "cute" and find it an idea as appealing as most did.

Nugs liked him, because he was quiet and not very threatening even by a nug's low standards for such things. He watched where he stepped to make sure there were no nugs underfoot, and always crouched down to their level and held out his hand first, so he became a friend on their terms. They chirped and cooed as he delicately scratched them on the top of the head, sounds as meaningful to Cole as any words could ever be.

Cole sometimes had to eat nugs. He tried to remember what plants and things were good to eat, but sometimes got them mixed up and then he'd be sick again. And there weren't always plants growing, wherever he was, but there were always nugs. So sometimes he would get so hungry that his hands would shake around the hilt of his daggers. When those times arrived, he would crouch down and urge a nug over and hold out his hand. It would nuzzle against his fingers and he would scratch it delicately on the top of the head, listening to it chirp and coo. And if he was careful, and hadn't waited too long, his other hand would still be steady enough to drive his dagger through the back of its head before it could even be aware that its new friend had betrayed it.

When those times arrived, Cole tried not to think too much about what he was eating. It was easier than he perhaps would have liked, because his body was so insistent on thanking him for giving it something to eat at all. He could eat meat without having to try not to hear or feel or think about anything, but it was easier when the meat had been dead a while longer than an hour, and when it hadn't been killed by his hand.

In the spaces between cities, he had no such alternatives. Besides death, of course, but Cole did not want to die. After he had come so far, it seemed like such a waste to all the people he'd lost behind him.

Cole liked nugs, but he'd had to learn for himself just how fragile they were, just how easy it was to betray that easy trust even when you didn't want to. So even if he liked them, Cole also couldn't help an unpleasant twist of guilt in his stomach whenever he approached one or one approached him.

One night, however, he discovered that not all nugs were fragile and soft. It was a night where a great many things would change, for him, but the discovery of the existence of giant nugs was a noteworthy start all on its own.

He was cleaning out the stables and seeing to the horses there, when one of his fellow temporary stablehands called him over to handle "this freakish thing, it has hands, Maker _why_." Cole obediently went, and _saw_.

The giant nug looked back at him with deep, wise eyes. It was large enough to come up to his shoulder with just its shoulder, and its head was framed with two twisting horns. Cole knew that, if he ever tried to drive a knife through the back of its head, it would know what he was doing in a heartbeat and retaliate with all ferociousness due.

It was a profoundly reassuring thought, and he held out a hand with a smile. "Hello."

The nug stared at him, sniffed at his hand, and then looked at him again with its head tilted just slightly. Cole could almost see it thinking, _hmmm_.

Then it really did hum out loud, a deep sound that seemed to thrum along his ribs and the soles of his feet. It was a sound that was somehow heavy and ticklish all at once - far from unpleasant, and less unlike the nugs he knew than the stablehand seemed to think. Indeed, after a moment's further consideration, the nug butted its head against Cole's hand, letting out a low chirp.

The stablehand was more than happy to pass the reins to him, and Cole was more than happy to take them, leading the giant nug into the stables and an empty pen near the kitchen door. It followed with heavy, placid steps behind him, settled down heavily in its bed of fresh hay, and let Cole scratch the top of its head for a little while after he unsaddled it.

This moment would turn out to be the highlight of his evening. It was a very busy night inside, with a storm shaking its fist and threatening outside, and Cole was soon called in to help manage all the visitors. They knew better than to keep him in the kitchen since he'd mixed up spindleweed and pepper that one time, but he could still transport drinks and food and news back and forth and forth and back between the kitchens and the main room. It was busy work, hard work, but he was helping. The others working in the inn had figured out how important that was to him, and took care to tell Cole as much. It wasn't much in the way of help, but it would still result in them paying him, and it had been a week and a town since that had last been the case.

Unfortunately, it was such a busy night that other things entirely slipped Cole's mind, and the minds of the people who normally thought to remind him so he continued to be of any use at all.

He only noticed his hands shaking around the rim of a tray when the forks started rattling faintly. Cole bit his lip, and tried to urge himself to stay steady. _It's late. They'll let you go to sleep soon._ And soon the leftovers would be doled out, and everyone would remember that he should have some.He didn't know if that was true. He had no idea what time it was; the brief glimpses he could get outside the window only told him that it was dark out. But if the rest of the world insisted on lying to Cole, he could at least listen to lies from himself every once in a while.

It proved as fruitless a hope as it had all the other times he'd tried to believe in it. The rest of the world became harder to notice as closely as he normally could. That was how it worked - as he made more noise, as he found himself mired more and more in the _physical_ , there was less room in his head to hear the noise others made, inside and out.

Really, if a kind soul hadn't reached out and steadied Cole's hands as he tried to step around the bar once more, he would have spilled the drinks of half a dozen people and gotten everyone even more upset, rather than less. Acting without thinking, Cole looked around with a smile to thank them, looked down, and saw just who that kind soul had been.

Varric smiled. He was saying something, or Cole thought he was, but it was impossible to make out whatever words they might have been. There was too much noise, louder and louder and louder until it all blended together into a ringing in his ears.

_"Kid?"_

He wasn't sure if he spoke, or Varric did.

Cole most certainly heard the sound of ceramic and glass shattering against the floor, shortly followed by the sound of metal clattering as the tray bounced once or twice. It still took him a second to realize that it was because his fingers, nerveless with shock, had reflexively uncurled from the edge of the tray.

Several things happened very quickly, after that, so that Cole was never quite sure of events in his head. People talking, hands steadying, voices raised in concern, voices raised in anger. Hands pushing, hands guiding, scenery sliding around him like water trickling down a log. Shaking in body, shaken in mind. Speaking in a voice he recognized as his own, unsure who he was speaking to.

_"You should leave. I should leave. You should leave. I left. I'm sorry. Forget forget forget..."_

The scent of the stables replaced the scent of the common room. It was a heavy, fetid sort of smell, grounding without being overwhelming in the way people usually were. Cole was able to find his feet again, in body and in mind, so that the two other workers who'd urged him in here and out of the way apparently felt safe letting go of him.

They’d bring food in a little while, they said. Just stay quiet in here, they said. Don’t die, they said, because the cook was having a hard enough night and taking it out on all of them already.

“All right,” said Cole. “All right.”

He’d been sleeping in a hayloft – it was warm, more comfortable than the floor, and he minded the smell less than most. The climb up the ladder wasn’t much, even for as shaky as he was. His hat and his bag were still up there, tucked safely into a corner between the hay and the wall. Just for the sake of having something familiar to hold on to, he tugged his hat closer and held it against his chest. The journey from Skyhold had not been kind to it - the leather had been stitched and patched, and the metal scratched and dented, to the point that Cole wasn't entirely sure how much of his original hat was left.

But it had survived.

Just like him.

Maybe seeing Varric had been just a dream. Cole had those, now. They sometimes made it difficult to wake up. He hoped it had only been a dream. He hoped that it hadn't been a dream. He didn't know what he hoped, not really, and now his chest hurt as much as his stomach, and his head felt heavy as stone.

Would Varric be angry? He hadn't looked angry before, but maybe that had just been because he was so surprised. People could act strangely, when they were surprised. Cole knew that he sometimes did. Or maybe he would think that he was happy, but with time to think he would remember that Cole had left, remember that he had abandoned the Inquisition, and remember that he should be angry.

Or...and here Cole felt ice down his spine, despite the warmth of the hay...maybe Varric really had forgotten him. The dwarf was hardly the only one to ever call him "kid", after all, even if it sounded solid and strong as stone in his voice, his name as much as "Cole". He'd thought that he'd only been able to make the Inquisitor forget because a part of her had wanted to, and because the Mark had amplified what little of that power he'd had left. He hadn't bothered to try and make the others forget, it had been too long and he was too real.

But maybe he'd been away long enough that Varric had forgotten anyway. Cole didn't really know how long it had been. He didn't know what had happened, or what his friends - even now, they were his friends - might have suffered in his absence.

He might not have been able to help, if he'd been there, but at least he could have known, and they could have known that he was there to want to help. That still made a difference more often than not. He knew that very well, now.

But he couldn't have stayed. He _couldn't_.

Some things should be just that simple.

Cole laid there a while, tired but too full of thoughts and not enough full of food to sleep. Finally, he clambered back down the ladder, and found himself sitting on the edge of the gate to the giant nug's pen. It lifted its head to regard him and chirped in greeting.

_"Nugs are kind, Almost everything is bigger than they, but they're still happy. If you hold out your hand, they will nuzzle it. It's how they call you 'friend.'"_

_"Remember, Inquisitor, the harmless-looking ones are always the most dangerous."_

_"Nugs aren't dangerous."_

_"I was not referring to nugs._ "

There wasn't very much that was bigger than this nug, but it still nuzzled his hand and let Cole sit there, scratching its head for a little while longer.

It was there that Varric found him. Cole felt too worn and tired and heavy to even be as surprised as he should have been. He just looked up at the twin sounds of approaching feet and approaching thoughts...and even after all this time and all the miles, he smiled without even thinking about it.

Especially when he saw that Varric had brought food.

"Hope you don't mind," the dwarf said, with a slightly uncomfortable sort of half shrug and a valiant attempt to return the smile. "I went ahead and volunteered to run this out to you when I saw they were slowing down for the night."

"Of course I don't mind." There was food. And Varric. And whatever Varric's presence might mean here might not be good, but the dwarf himself could never be a negative element.

Cole suspected that his answer would not have affected whether or not he got food, but it was nice to have the food passed over anyway. A reasonably sized hunk of bread, some cheese, and an apple, all on one of the kitchen's scuffed and chipped wooden plates. They really must have been worried about him.

"Sorry about...earlier," said Varric, leaning against the gate with him. Not quite next to Cole, but close enough. "I was just surprised to see you, here of all places. Guess the feeling was mutual, huh?"

Cole nodded, mouth full of bread. The feeling had obviously been mutual, but he still didn't know what that _meant_ to Varric. 

But Varric had always been patient about guessing when Cole didn't understand, about explaining himself in a way that didn't make Cole feel like he wasn't human. "Look. Obviously there's a lot to talk about. But first thing's first..." Even if Cole didn't look up, he could feel it when Varric looked round at him. "How've you been, kid?" 

Cole didn't look up, but he did smile again. It was more at the fact that the question had been asked than what his answer was, because the only answer he could really give was: "I don't know. I've...'been'. I think I'm still trying to figure out what that means. It's...a lot to think about."

"Yeah. Guess it would be."

He could almost taste the breath Varric was holding before he made the decision to take a step nearer, a decision he made as somberly as any time he'd decided to shoot someone dead. He was braced for Cole to move away, or tell him to stop, and Cole's heart ached in sympathy and even a little bewildered hurt that Varric would ever think that of him. Except, even if he'd been holding himself back from Varric, it was still easier for Cole to hear people than not.

_Why didn't he tell me? We could have figured something out, but now he looks like he'd blow away in a stiff breeze all over again..._

"It hasn't been hard," Cole said out loud. "It's just been...a lot. So many people, so much pain...only so much of me."

"Hard to know where to start," Varric agreed, nodding. Understanding. Cole had missed that, and could scarcely believe that he was feeling that again. "Yeah, I think I know how that goes."

"I start with whatever is in front of me. But I always move on, and then there's always something else in front of me. And I feel...thin, and stretched, and heavy, and you don't care."

" _Hey._ " Cole actually flinched as he saw Varric reaching for him, unsure what to expect but knowing what he should expect, unprepared for such sudden movement. To his credit, and Cole's relief, Varric paused halfway across the space between them, and let his hand fall to his side once more. But when Cole risked darting a glance at him all the same, he saw that Varric looked...angry? Hurt? He still couldn't tell, but the dwarf's tone was sharp all the same when he spoke. "What the _hell_ , kid? Of _course_ I care. I know I...lost track of you, and I'm sorry about that, but what would make you think..."

"I'm sorry," Cole said, cutting him off as gently as he could. "That isn't what I meant. I meant that you _shouldn't_ care. _Because_ I left."

"...oh."

_Oh, Cole,_ that's _how you think it is? Damn, I'm awful at this whole "teaching to be human" thing..._

But out loud, there was silence for a few minutes more, while Cole finished his makeshift supper and Varric tried to find words to break the silence out loud.

When he finally did, even Cole was surprised when Varric nodded back over his shoulder at the nug instead. "No shitting you, kid, I've thought of you more than once while trying to wrangle this bastard from here to the coast. He can carry as much as an ox, and there's nothing better for mountains, and at least he's the right _height_. But he's as stubborn enough to make Hawke sit up and take notice, and at least horses aren't convinced they're the smartest things on four legs. Around about the third time I had to drag him back onto the path, I thought to myself, _you know, I wish the kid was here_. _He could talk some sense into you._ Looks like I was right."

"He's not stubborn. He really does know where to go, and he's worried you'll hurt yourself."

"You can see all that in his head, huh?"

"I don't need to. Just his eyes."

They were wise eyes, intelligent eyes. Really, Cole couldn't help but wonder if the nug was smarter than either of them, and wouldn't have been surprised if it were true. Just because something couldn't find the words to speak didn't mean it was stupid. Reaching out to pat the giant nug on the head once more, Cole added: "Why did you take him along if you don't like him?"

"I didn't say I don't like him. I said he's a pain in my ass that I wished you were around to help me deal with. Why do you think I named him 'Bartrand'?"

The nug chirped in response to its name, and Cole felt a laugh bubbling up in his chest. It felt all the better for being so much missed.

"Anyway, I brought him along because I knew there'd be a metric shitload of work waiting for me back home, that I would have been around to deal with if Cassandra hadn't dragged me into this mess in the first place. Since I wasn't, I figured I better not skimp on the supplies I brought back. And there's definitely still going to be some rubble that needs hauling. If he likes to show off that much, he can do it by helping clear it."

The nug chirped its agreement of this plan.

"You're going back to Kirkwall?" Cole asked.

"Yeah. And, hey, Cassandra's meeting me there. I told her it was the least she could do, and she agreed."

_Cassandra_ . She was all right. She was still finding ways and reasons to help people. She still had a path to follow in life. Cole felt a weight life from his heart that he'd almost forgotten was there at all, it had been there so long. 

"You're going home to help?" he asked.

"Yep. Home sweet home. Demons, dragons, the Fade, and monsters out of legend are all well and good. But honestly? It'll be nice to get my hands dirty somewhere where I have even half an idea of what the hell is going on." Varric shook his head, smiling fondly, and added: "Kirkwall might be a rat-infested anthill where this entire mess began. But it's  _my_ rat-infested anthill, and I'm looking forward to getting it polished back up a little." 

"You will. I know you will."

"I appreciate the vote of confidence, kid...but either way, it's going to be a long game. Even with the Seeker pitching in."

Cole felt...something. Something like the feeling of balancing on the very edge of the wall and looking down, and you could either step back onto safety or step down and see if this time you would fly. He didn't dare to speak, for fear of simply falling, but Varric spoke instead. Words that meant the world.

"We could always use a little more help."

Before Cole could even think to question, to wonder or doubt or run, Varric was continuing on, words like water over rocks, or no, not like that. Water over rocks wore away, but as Cole listened, he felt himself being built back up for the first time in longer than he could remember anymore.

"I know why you left, kid. Honestly, once we realized that you had, it was pretty easy to put the pieces together about why. And honestly, if you'd told me you were leaving, I might have gone with you...but I know why you didn't. It's okay. I'm not mad, none of us are. We've just missed you."

"And I missed you." His voice came out sounding strange, because his throat was tight and so he didn't seem to be getting quite enough air and  _oh, no..._

Varric gave Cole a minute to try and pull himself together - futilely, it would prove - rather than replying directly. Instead, he continued on like nothing was wrong. "But honestly...it was only a matter of time. You just did what a couple of us had already started wishing we could do. We needed the Inquisition, at least long enough to put Corypheus down for good and all, but..." Varric sighed, long and tired and bitter, shaking his head. "...it was never going to go much past that. Honestly, I think even she knew that, at the end. But now that I've seen this story through...I can get back to my own."

This time, Cole did not flinch when Varric reached out towards him, so this time, Varric did not stop halfway through doing so. Somehow, without him entirely noticing it happening, they'd wound up next to one another - Cole perched on the gate, Varric leaning against it. The dwarf's hand was warm and solid and steady against his shoulder, and Cole swallowed painfully.

"I'm proud of you, kid. Coming this far, working as hard as you have to help people even though I know you've had enough on your own plate to sift through. Seeing you looking a little run down should be the least surprising thing in Thedas. And I know, much as I like to puff myself up, that if I left you here now that you'd make it just fine, in the end, you'd figure all this shit out on your own..."

"Please don't."

He was sorry to cut Varric off again - enough people had told him that was impolite - but Cole couldn't breathe, could barely see through the tears gathering in his eyes, and he really, truly did not want to leave Varric again, or for Varric to leave him, and now that he knew Varric didn't want that either there was no hiding as much...

The hand on his shoulder squeezed gently before pulling away, but Varric did not. Instead, he only spoke, and said more with three words than anyone else could ever have said with ten, guiding the world into simple sense with a gentle hand.

"Come here, kid." Solid and strong as stone in his voice, his name as much as "Cole".  _Kid, says the stone. Kid, kidding. It would keep me kept with a name, but the can can't catch me._

_Not if I don't let it._

It was the easiest thing in the world to ease himself down off the gate and just...let himself fall to his knees there on the rough wooden floor of the stables. Especially since, this time, it was a fall with someone there to catch him. He reached out, and then Varric was  _there_ , wrapping his arms around Cole without hesitation, one pressed gently against the back of his head, the other rubbing up and down his back and  _this_ , this was what was wonderful and right about being  _real_ . He'd almost forgotten as he was battered and buffeted by life's endless tides.

Cole hugged the dwarf back tightly, and finally found his breath again in the soft sobs that followed.

"As I was saying," said Varric softly, and Cole could hear the smile in his voice. "I know you  _could_ figure out this crazy game called life alone. But that doesn't mean you should have to. It's like I said, way back when.  _I_ didn't make the decision to help you become a person. You made that all on your own. All I want to do is help you survive that. That's still what I want. And giving you a place to really find your feet again, giving you a place to hang this hat of yours'..."

_Giving you the home you should have had from the start..._

"...well, it's the least I could do. If you wanted me to. It's not like there wouldn't be plenty in Kirkwall to keep you busy. Honestly, it's a town that could use more people like you."

"I do," said Cole, stringing two tiny words together through the tears. "I want. _I_ want."

The hands on him tightened for a moment, and then loosened, as Varric let himself believe in that moment that Cole wasn't about to fly away again. Cole felt a knot in his chest ease, and Varric's, one tied by the same threads and the same pain.

"Good," said Varric, and his voice sounded a little tight as well. "That's...good. Glad to hear it, Cole."

He still slept in the stable that night, because they both agreed it was more comfortable than the floor and the sound of the giant nug snoring in its sleep was almost as familiar and reassuring as the sound of Varric snoring in his sleep. But the next morning, after Varric had paid his way with the innkeeper, they set off together, Bartrand the Deth Nug plodding along placidly between them and Cole letting himself be towed along by its reigns.

It looked like a new road, it tasted like a new day. For the first time since he'd been able to see Skyhold at his back, Cole felt like he finally had his feet under him. Maybe it was the joyful anticipation of seeing Cassandra again, too. Maybe it was because he had someplace to go to, rather than someplace to go away from. 

Maybe it was only because, for perhaps the first time in his life - whenever that had begun - he was going home.

**Author's Note:**

> So, weirdly enough, Human!Cole is actually proving a little harder for me to write than original Cole is. I mean, I know I tackled that already in "Helping Goes Both Ways", but he was sick in that, so I felt safe dipping back into Cole's more abstract ways of thinking and talking. 
> 
> Also, Varric and Cole continue to be one of my favorite relationships ever. Varric, Cassandra, and Cole are even better, but I couldn't quite make her work this time. This fic spiraled out of control as it was. Ah, well. Maybe next time.


End file.
